Five-year-old Anthony Martinez opens a package of children's books and a tape made by his mother who is serving time in the Denver County Jail.

In this video column, Emani Davis, the director of Project Family Connect and the daughter of an incarcerated man, talks about  the stigma that she experienced as the child of an incarcerated parent and her desire to address the specific needs of this group.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: How has having an incarcerated parent affected the way you see yourself?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646)-867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

Earlier this year, she was named the director of Project Family Connect for New York’s Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). Her focus is to make judges and attorneys more aware of how having a parent in jail impacts children and young adults. And, after years of struggle, she says that some in the court system are finally starting to listen.

In her monthly audio column, Davis will share her thoughts and experiences, and answers questions that you may have about how incarceration is affecting your own families.

If you have a question for Emani, you have three options:

1) Post a question in the comments section below,

2) Send an email to questions@livesinfocus.org,

3) Call (646) 867-1891 to leave a message.

Emani also welcomes questions from others who might simply be interested in knowing more about how the life of families is affected when a parent is incarcerated.

Click on the player above or download this video here.

In a previous piece, Coleman discusses how he helped raise his children by using a telephone. He also describes how he went from being a crime-loving man to a family man.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: Did you send your spouse or partner in prison pictures of your children? How did you feel experiencing your children grow through photographs alone?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

Her father’s incarceration started to affect Emani immediately. Most of her classmates stopped talking to her when they found out that her father was in prison and sometimes she would get into fights with kids who teased her about her dad.

“It was the first time that I realized that this was something that people thought that I should be ashamed of,” she said.

These experiences made her aware of the stigma that befalls children of incarcerated parents, and she learned to be more selective in sharing this part of her life with those around her. When she came to understand the circumstances around her father’s imprisonment, she also found herself doing a great deal of explaining, making sure that people knew that even though he had been convicted of felony murder, he was not the one who pulled the trigger.

At 29, Emani is no longer as burdened by others’ negative reactions to her father. She has come to terms with the events that landed him behind bars and has spoken publicly about being the child of an incarcerated person.

In the confines of detention centers around Virginia, she has developed a tight relationship with her father. When she visits him, they play cards and do puzzles together. He gives her newspaper clippings and she talks to him about her life. Her friends tell her that she has a better relationship with her incarcerated father than they do with their own.

“My father is my homeboy,” she said, smiling proudly as she spoke about him. “We kick it on a visit.”

Despite their closeness, his incarceration has been the cause of a void she can’t seem to fill. She feels it in her relationships and in the constant waiting that has marked a big part of her existence: waiting for the next visit, on line at the detention center, for the next ruling in his case. She says that she has put her life on hold waiting for him to come home, which explains why she did an extra year of high school and college, hoping that perhaps next year he’d be there to celebrate with her.

However, his imprisonment has also imbued her with a sense of purpose. Her family’s struggles with the legal system have led her to work with social justice organizations around the country, most recently with urban youth in Oakland, Calif. Her father is the reason she moved from California to New York, to be closer to him and continue to work on getting him released on parole. He has been eligible for release for 11 years, but convincing the parole board that her father is fit to be back in the community has been quite a struggle. This year marked the eleventh time that his parole petition was denied.

This denial dealt a particularly strong blow to Emani and her family. Now that her father is 65 and in failing health, there is a new sense of urgency to succeed in securing his release.

“He can’t die there,” she said.